Mind you, I’d been using them almost exclusively for nearly 8 (EIGHT!) freakin years.  That’s a lot of notebooks!

It started two years ago, when I got tired of searching for the perfect pen for Moleskines.  I say “for Moleskines” because that thin and crappy paper worked best with bad ballpoints.  As Stephanie from Biffy Beans puts it, it’s “Like trying to write on dead leaves” sometimes.  Nice and inky ballpoints would transfer to the other page when I wrote on the back.  Same for pencil.  Forget anything really and truly inky.  But, I realized that, for better or worse, I really liked them.  And that was that.

Well, it actually started a few years before that, when I wished that Moleskines were a little greener.  There were no green moleskine (small m) books back then, not that I could find.  Not like now.

Anyway, the pen search was annoying.  I know I’m not alone, either, and on blogs and Flickr and Facebook, people searched for something that would work in these over-priced books with lies on the covers.  Then, this summer, I lost my shit a little one day over my BRAND WHOREDOM.  I recovered, and the company that owns Moleskine, meanwhile, promised greener cover materials.

Yeah, not only are they not made of recycled paper, and not only are they kinda made in China, kinda made in Italy, kinda taken on a whole trip around the world before you pay too much for them (must be where that get all that “nomad” crap from).  They are also covered in freakin PVC.  People who were laser-engraving these things had to stop because burning PVC creates dangerous fumes.

WARNING : DO NOT LASER ENGRAVE MOLESKINES WITHOUT THE PROPER FILTRATION SYSTEM. BURNING THEM CREATES HIGHLY TOXIC GASES INCLUDING PHOSGENE AND CHLORINE GAS. THE HYDROCHLORIC ACID PRODUCED WILL CORRODE EVERYTHING IT CONTACTS.

PVC can make fire-fighters sick when it’s used in building materials and burns.  One of my favorite people in the world is a fire-fighter.  I feel like I shouldn’t contribute to the PVC market, especially when I can easily just, you know, not do it.  Most companies are taking it out of their products.  Many did a long time ago.  Again, someone from the company that makes Moleskine products promised greener cover materials in August in a comment to this post.  Last August.  No word on that.  That only that, but they won’t publish even the most innocent “hey, got a date on them there covers?” comment on that post.  I’m going to pass on talking about how they destroyed one of the coolest blogs on the internet by just making Moleskinerie a badly-written ad.  But censoring comments from people who leave a real email address and URL and who have had previously-published comments is just bullshit.

Also.  Yes.  The last three Moleskines I bought had to be replaced by the company.  They actually only replaced two.  One had every page ripped, and another had a BUG in the paper.  Yes, a dead bug.  They sent one to replace them.  Thanks.  Then they wrapped one of those fancy “passions” journals so badly in its unnecessary plastic that the pages barely opened from the bend-job they got on the book’s trip around the world and to my doorstep.  After three emails and at least six weeks, they replaced that.  It smelled like, as someone else put it, jet fuel also.  It sits and is not used near food.

I felt like a jack-ass already, not only for how many of those damned things I’d bought and filled, but for how many I caused other people to buy.  And how many I gave as gifts.  Etc.

Then, this summer/fall, I scored some better books and haven’t looked back since.  I can use whatever pens I want to.  Some of them are made of green materials, using green processes.  None of them have lies printed all over them and never have.  And, playing to my own weakness, none of them are prone to idolatry or fetishization from me — that I can tell.  Except Field Notes, but I, frankly, just write and draw in them, beat the shit out of them, and start a new one when it’s full.  I haven’t gotten batty about them.  Not yet.  If I do, I’ll quit using them, no matter how nice the paper is.

(This thing is FULL of Moleskines.)

But this made me poop in my own cereal.  Not only is Moleskine now just a brand for over-priced Notebooks.  It’s a brand for all kinds of shyte.  Check it out:

“Writing, Travelling and Reading. The new Moleskine collections include bags, pencils, pens, reading glasses, computer cases, a rechargeable reading light and an e-reader stand. A series of accessories, clip-ons and holders are perfectly compatible with the notebooks, ensuring the greatest range of uses and thus forming the ideal kit for the modern-day nomad. Designed by Giulio Iacchetti, the new collections are bound to the Moleskine’s very make-up in their functional and aesthetic traits: the elastic band, the rounded corners, the black color, the simple design.”

Moleskines are, officially, ruined for me.  I remember when they were actually made well (I don’t care what the company says, the quality has gone to hell in the last 2-3 years, with some exceptions like my 2009 planner), when they were still kind of esoteric and hard to find, when they felt special and practical — when a Moleskine was a notebook, not an over-branded pack of sticky-notes.

And, yet.  Still.  I totally want The Little Prince edition.  And, jeepers.  I find myself drawn to them sometimes.  I can’t say why. I readily admit that a large part of why Moleskines were such an issue for me relates to my own personality. They became like a woman who was really bad for me, but whom I really liked to involve myself with. In the stationery department, I mean.

Before you’re tempted to send pro-Moleskine hatemail, read the post title again.  No one’s taking away your planet-killing notebooks.  Just your money.